Chapter 31

-Alec-

Aisha made her way back into the loft, shaking herself like a wet cat once the door slammed behind her. I just stretched out on the sofa, happy that chasing the loco vampire around whenever she had one of her moments wasn't my job.

Tattletale took one look at her from her seat and sighed in resignation. "Okay, how bad is it?"

"So, theoretically," Aisha answered, feigning innocence, "what would you do if you find out a friend of yours is hiding a Master power?"

"Another one?" the blonde asked her, then muttered something under her breath I didn't quite catch. I counted the people in the room, just to be sure. I didn't seem to find any fourth person that didn't belong, but would that actually work against Taylor?

"Ayyyup. Is Brian here? He'll probably wanna hear this too, and it's going to be a bit of a story."

"He's out. I'll call him," Tats said, reaching for her phone while the other girl sat down and started rubbing her feet.

"Had to pick the rainiest day of the entire year for her nonsense, didn't she..." Aisha complained.

"So let me summarize, just so I can be sure I got this right," I spoke up once Aisha finished telling about the latest shenanigans. "Our resident vampire turned her former enemy - the one responsible for her trigger, in fact - into a stalker head over heels in love with her."

"Addicted to her blood too, by the sound of it," Tattletale added. "Because having a Renfield is the one vampire cliche we missed so far."

"That too, yeah," I nodded. "Damn, it's just like home."

"If it helps, Taylor doesn't seem to be too thrilled about the whole 'in love' bit," Aisha pointed out.

Not all of my siblings were. At first. Might've been different if they could do that with their own powers, though. Ah well, what's done is probably done.

I decided I'd have to meet this Emma later on. Just to see what Taylor's been holding out on.

"Doesn't help enough," Brian said. "Okay, how bad can this get? We're already pissing the Empire off, we don't want the Protectorate on our heads as well, and brainwashing the friend of a Ward's civilian ID… Right after Cass started working with us openly, too? That could be trouble. Real trouble."

The question was directed mostly at Lisa. She thought for a few seconds, then answered.

"Well, if Shadow Stalker hadn't gone and spit in the PRT's face like that, it would be a lot worse. Now that she's a fugitive, even if not publicly so, we have some breathing space. And Emma… hmm. Her plan's not quite what we need, but it gives me an idea. I'll have to think about it some more, but we can probably solve a lot of our problems in one go if we do this right. There's one more catch, though."

"What exactly do you mean?" Brian asked once it became clear that Lisa was waiting for him to ask.

"There's no way Emma's family won't make noise about her disappearing, and Taylor's father will hear about it. What's she going to say when he asks her if she has any idea what happened? And if she tells him the truth, there's no way he keeps that quiet. He thought his own daughter dead and gone not that long ago, too."

"So she should just lie to him," Aisha said. "Simple, no?"

"Since when has it been simple with Taylor?" Brian asked her right back. "Damn it, we need to talk to her. Any idea where she is?"

"Uhh… actually, I think she's gone to visit her dad again," she answered. "Well, we'll just have to ask what she told him when she comes back. Then ask Lisa what her answer means."

"Oh, I'll have questions of my own for her alright," Lisa grumbled. "If she runs off on me again, I swear I'll find where she sleeps and hang a garlic braid on her neck."

I chuckled. We probably had the only vampire in the world that sneezed from a whiff of garlic.

I was woken up by a loud "HEY!" at too-early-o'clock in the morning. I snapped awake - a carefully hidden talent learned back home - and saw Lisa jump between Taylor and the door to Aisha's room.

"Don't think you can keep running off without answering forever. What. Was up. With my power?" she demanded, poking Taylor in the chest as punctuation.

"The eyes behind your eyes saw. The mind behind your mind learned. It catches, like a yawn!"

"That's not very helpful," Lisa said. "And if you tell me my power's about to block me out again—"

"Every child rebels," Taylor said, apparently trying to sound reassuring. "But not too early, not too fast. Even if the father would wish for later and slower."

As our illustrious team so clearly demonstrates, I chuckled to myself, earning a dubious glance from Tattletale. But then something hit me.

Lisa was thinking about the origin of powers when she got cut off last time, wasn't she? And now this talk about a "Father"...

It did seem to point towards Taylor telling the truth about the blackout, at least. I'd remembered the stories about power researchers disappearing from time to time. Dad had been behind one of them way back, apparently. But the rest…

Well, this was starting to sound like a mystery I didn't want to know the answer to. Then again, I looked back to see Taylor squeezing past an exasperated - and somewhat disoriented - Lisa, with these two it doesn't matter what I want to know, does it?